Good Morning, America
by Kompressor
Summary: One-shot. One young boy's story set during the initial stages of the plague; my first fic! Please R & R.


A/n: My first story. Please R & R. Constructive Criticism welcome. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I've never had to write one before. Do I really need one? If so, no, I don't own Dawn of the Dead.

Good Morning, America

Bit by bit, the light from the sun was growing in the east. It was normally the time when the rooster would be screeching its trademark 'cock-a-doodle-doo'! The animals of the night were getting ready for sleep, and the animals that thrived in the daytime were getting ready to awaken. Humans were among the second group. However, that one day was not the same as all of previous ones.

No birds sang as Patrick O'Connor sleepily smacked his palm down on his blaring alarm clock. He took no notice to the fact that only snow was sounding through the speakers before he silenced it, mentally writing it off as bad reception. It took him a few seconds to realize, as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, that he still heard the sound of snow even though he shut off his radio alarm. He bent down in order to place his ear next to the speakers. As he listened for the source of the noise, he realized that it wasn't coming from his radio, but from somewhere outside of his room. Another realization was that it wasn't snow, but more of a crackling sound.

He crossed the threshold of his room and stood with his hands in mid-stretch at his window. The room was on the second and top story of his house, giving him a view of most of his suburban street. His eyes still half-closed, he leaned down on the sill and gazed out across his street. He froze in mid-yawn as his bleary eyes focused on the carnage in his street. The house directly across from his was on fire, the huge flames obviously the source of the crackling noise he was hearing. As he watched in stunned fascination, a burning wooden beam from the front porch of the house, its supports eaten away by the flames, teetered dangerously for an agonizingly slow second before crashing into a window on the ground floor of the house directly next to it. Screams could be heard from the inside just before the front door burst open, and two figures came dashing wildly out of it. Seconds later, another person came hurtling out of the open front door. Patrick noticed, to his incredible horror, that this lone person's hair and clothes were on fire. He wanted to help the people, to call 911 and alert the fire department, but a kind of stunned fascination kept him rooted to the spot at his window. His brain was in a kind of numb state, as though he was watching a movie, or an event that was taking place far away.

He watched as the burning man ran to the slower of the first two people who had come out of the house, and he seemed to, seemed to...trip her? Yes, from Patrick's point of view, the man seemed to bring the person down to her knees, only for her to pitch forward onto her stomach. The screams issuing from the woman on the ground seemed to get louder in volume, only to stop suddenly, even though the burning person was still leaning over her. Patrick's wide eyes were drawn to the burning person, who seemed not to care that he was in a life threatening-situation.

Why was he doing nothing to extinguish the flames that were rapidly consuming his body? Why was he still leaning over the girl? Why had she stopped screaming? Why were there no pedestrians or fire fighters on the street? All these questions and more buzzed around his head as he watched the scene unfold in front of his terrified eyes.

Suddenly he heard the sound of glass breaking downstairs. It made him jump, and in his already nervous state he almost fell out of his window. That abrupt noise seemed to spur him into action. As he began to run to his door, he planned on what he was going to do: shout to his parents downstairs to see what caused the noise and if they were okay, and call 911 in order to remedy the fires across the street, prevent them from spreading to other houses, and help those people who had already been injured. The image of the flaming man once again came to his mind.

However, loud screams from down the stairs put a damper on his plans. Not only did he hear terrified screams from his mother and father, he also heard the vicious howls of a voice he didn't recognize. No one else was in his house; was a strange man attacking his parents? And why did his voice sound so..._wrong, _for lack of a better term? Once again, pure horror had Patrick standing completely still, rooted to the floor. Personal safety conflicted with the basic instinct of self-preservation, so Patrick made no move to assist his parents.

As the sounds of roars and struggling reached his ears, Patrick was astonished to realize that his parents' petrified screams were becoming more and more animalistic, just like that third, alien voice he had heard alongside his parents'. Then, without warning, the screaming and sounds of fighting stopped. The complete and utter silence seemed to deafen him. Unconsciously he moved to his window, which happened to be the place in his room that was farthest away from his door. An incredibly loud noise from outside of his house drew his attention to his window, and he swept his gaze over the street.

Quite literally, his jaw dropped at the sight before him. Thick black smoke drifted into the light blue, early morning sky. There were now several houses ablaze. But these houses were not the only contributors to the rapidly blackening sky. Four cars were overturned in the middle of the street, two of them in flames. One of these smoldering cars, a minivan, Patrick couldn't tell which brand, was only a black chassis. Patrick assumed the flames still eating it had caused an explosion when they reached the gas tank, causing the loud noise he had heard.

_Funny, I thought that that only happened in movies._

Morbid curiosity made Patrick shift his gaze to where the three people ran out of the burning house. The burning man kept stumbling around his lawn. The girl he had tripped was still lying on the ground. But as Patrick watched, she slowly but surely stood up, as though learning to walk for the first time, and began to wander aimlessly around the lawn, as though she was imitating the burning man. There was no trace of the third person that had come out of the house.

A scream sounded from down the street. A man came running from the east end of his street, his legs pounding as fast as they could, him screaming at the top of his lungs all the while. Seconds later, a horde of people came running after. For a split second, Patrick wondered if they were all running for the same reason. But the screams coming from the mouths of this mob quickly erased that thought. They sounded oddly familiar, but he couldn't quite place where he had heard these screams before....

The mob caught up with the running man. The people in the lead grabbed him and threw him to the ground. This scene was eerily familiar. It reminded of the events of just a few minutes ago, when the burning man had tripped the girl. Finally, the reason why they tripped the man hit him, hit him harder than any physical blow he had ever felt.

They were tearing the man apart. Patrick saw an arm part with the man's torso before he had the sense to turn away. Just before Patrick had completely turned away, he saw the ever-burning man and the girl next to him run and join the mob. The mob was growling as they closed in on the hapless man.

Growling? THAT'S where he heard those tones of voice before! It was just a short time ago, when... when... when that, that person broke into the house and attacked his parents.

Swallowing hard, Patrick tiptoed his way to his door and put his ear against it. He could hear sounds of footsteps coming from downstairs and they seemed to be coming upward, toward his room. Patrick held his breath. The steps were coming closer and closer. He was sure that his heart would burst any minute from pounding so fast. Sweat glistened on his face. The steps stopped in front of his door-

-and someone knocked, no, _slammed_ hard on his door, twice. Patrick jumped so high that he though his head would hit the ceiling. Hoping that it was one, or even better, both, of his parents, Patrick opened the door a fraction of a centimeter. What he saw made him weak in the knees and stomach, and he wanted to throw up.

There stood a woman with fiery crimson hair. That was the only common feature between this creature and his mother. The woman standing in front of his door was wearing a mint green nightshirt with a leprechaun on it that bore a striking resemblance to the Lucky Charms one, just like the one his mother always wore to bed. But what was terrifying about this person was her physical condition. The eyes were sunken and bloodshot. Not only that, but the pupils were red and dilated to a huge size. Cataracts completely covered the irises, so there was no way to tell what color eyes this person had, although Patrick knew that his mother had green eyes. Next, he noticed the condition of the skin. It had turned into a light gray hue, similar to the feathers of common pigeons. The skin had also adopted transparent properties, because Patrick could see blue veins crisscrossing across her skin like some parody of a roadmap. Bite marks were scattered randomly across the torso and limbs. But on the head, the amount of bite marks was more concentrated, and most of the skin was ripped off, leaving a few chunks of skin here and there intact, showing most of the fracture-riddled a skull. There was an obvious lack of hair in the places with no skin. Blood was all over the person. These elements combined, along with the low hiss emanating from the creature's torn throat, made Patrick think of one word:

_Zombie._

That was the only explanation his mind could grasp. He pieced this together with the events going on outside and thought with a shudder realized that this must be happening all over the city. Then, all of his thoughts were pushed aside and replaced with absolute, all-encompassing fear as the zombie grabbed him with the strength of a steel vice and screeched a cry of hunger and bloodlust. The smell of the creature's terrible breath became hotter and more noticeable as it dragged Patrick's face toward its grinning skeleton teeth, opening wide for a bite. This smell, along with the ever-present smell of decay and rot that he only just noticed, made him duck and retch all over the zombie. For some reason, this made its grip on him weaken.

He seized the opportunity and ran to the indoor balcony, which overlooked his living room. His hopes were that his father would be able to protect him, as he had done in the past. It was an irrational thought, because seeing his mother in that state should have warned him that his father was in a similar condition. He sneaked a peek over the railing and down the stairs. What he saw made him experience a new emotion for the day: sadness. He realized that his family was gone.

A man he didn't even know was kneeling over his father. Hearing Patrick's running footsteps, the man turned and looked up at him. He looked to be in the same condition as Patrick's mother. What sickened him was that the man's mouth was full, full with what Patrick guessed had to be meat from his father. A quick glance downward proved this to be true, because his father was laid out on his back, with this stomach torn completely open. Various organs were torn and discarded hastily, and bits of muscle and tissue from similar eviscerations on his arms and legs were strewn around the strange man. Blood was generously splashed over the two men, the ground, the furniture, and the walls, like some mad painter decided just to throw around cans of red paint. In his hands, the man held another fistful of still-bleeding gore. Patrick felt the need to vomit again, but couldn't because there was nothing left in him.

Shouting a wordless cry of fear, loss, and disgust, which was the first sound he had made all morning, Patrick darted away, trying to think of a way out of his hellhole of a house, seeing as how this stranger blocked the front door. He heard running the running footsteps and loud growls from his mother and the strange man, and knew that they were in close pursuit. Ducking down another hallway, he spied his open bathroom door. Seizing the prospect, he dove in, slammed the door shut, and quickly pressed down on the button at the top of the brass doorknob to lock it.

He tried to remain as quiet as possible, but thoughts of the loss of his parents and his utter fear made it hard to do so because of his loud, frequent sobs. Mere seconds after he had locked the door, the two zombies began beating at it, trying to tear it down. He knew that soon enough, if he had figured this out correctly, his father would get up and come after him, too. The sounds of the zombies' pounding fists and scratches against the heavy wooden door created a hellish chorus of frenzied noise that could have, under different circumstances, been conceived of as music beats.

_Window!_

The desperate idea interrupted his petrified thoughts as he lay in the fetal position on the bathroom floor. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Huge, glistening streak marks covered his cheeks from where the tears still ran freely. If he could climb down the ivy that covered most of the exterior of his house, he might have a chance of evading the zombies in the street. From there, he could look for a safe place and possibly protection.

In the meantime, however, as he thought this, he could hear his door splintering from the abuse it was taking. A primal roar announced the arrival of his father, and that goaded Patrick into action. Standing on his toilet, he scrabbled frantically for the window's lock, which he couldn't see because of the window's height.

A sudden thought struck him. The bathroom window was barred on the outside. No matter how long he delayed it, or how many ways he tried to get around it, his death seemed inevitable. Finally giving up and succumbing to fate, he turned to face the door just as the first zombie, his father, made a hole big enough for it to claw its way through.

END 


End file.
